Will Big Data Answer Big Questions on Health? (Science Friday)

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In an interview with Science Friday, Dartmouth’s Jason H. Moore weighs in about Google’s new data collection project, called Baseline Study, which is attempting to paint a picture of human health by cataloging the DNA of healthy people, along with their blood, saliva, tears, and more.

“As a data scientist I am really excited about the Google Baseline Study,” says Moore, the Third Century Professor and professor of genetics and community and family medicine at the Geisel School of Medicine. “I love data. I love big data. I especially love big data collected to address really complex problems like those in health care. But the collection of data, while it’s an important endeavor, should not be an end in itself.”

The key to converting big data to information is asking the right questions, says Moore, the director of the Institute for Quantitative Biomedical Sciences. “Do you ask simple questions of a very complex problem such as human health, or do you ask tough questions that embrace the complexity we know is there?”

Listen to the full story, broadcast 8/1/14 on Science Friday.

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